


I Can't Hear You

by Far_Beyond_The_Universe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Depressed Lance, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Lonely Keith, Lonely Lance, M/M, PINING KEITH, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Soft Boys, Sort of? - Freeform, but it's pretty minor, hearing impairment, klance, pining lance, set during season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2019-10-23 14:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17684945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Far_Beyond_The_Universe/pseuds/Far_Beyond_The_Universe
Summary: The other paladins (and Coran) are so frustrated with Keith and Lance's endless fighting that they take some drastic measures and put into place a device that prevents them from being able to hear each other. Without each other's voices both become incredibly lonely and start seeking one another out even if it's just silent company.





	1. The Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so I'm not really editing this nor do I have a beta reader but if there's something really poorly written or doesn't make sense please let me know and I'll fix it.
> 
> I've had this idea stuck in my head for a while now and since I just really don't want to do the work I need to do I thought I'd procrastinate and write this instead. So, yeah, chapters will be updated whenever I write them instead of doing homework or studying. I hope you enjoy!

Lance and Keith were fighting more than normal and it was getting on everyone’s nerves.  
  
Pidge had been working with some extremely flammable technology when a shouting match between the two started her so badly she blew her eyebrows off in the puff of flame that shot up. It took about two weeks before they had grown back in enough for her to lower them and glare at the boys every time they entered the room.  
  
Hunk had been talking to Shay over his comm screen when Lance and Keith, who had also been chilling in the room, had started whispering back and forth. The whispers turned sharper and more vicious the longer the conversation went on and Hunk had snapped at them to shut up. Which Shay thought was directed at her and having her feelings hurt had closed the connection. It took him three days to convince her he wasn’t mad at her. Lance had sheepishly apologized, and Keith had too, in his own way, but Hunk was still frustrated.  
  
Shiro and Keith had been sparring when Lance joined them. The first half hour went by without a hitch. And then Lance had failed to block a hit from Keith which led to an at first almost playful bickering which then became a full-on shouting match. Which, and Shiro didn’t really blame either of them for this, led to him having a flashback to his time as a prisoner on the Galra ship. His breathing quickened and he tried to gather himself under control. As soon as Keith saw what was happening he broke away from his fight with Lance and helped Shiro calm down but the man was left drained and spent the rest of the day in his room.  
  
Allura didn’t spend much time with the paladins, she was still very unfamiliar with humans and as much as she liked them she felt like there was a distance between her and the group. The space mice kept her company most of the time and when they weren’t there Coran typically was. Having so many near-strangers in the place she grew up was a bit strange though they had never actually damaged anything important to her—until now. She found Keith and Lance wrestling—actually physically fighting each other; Lance had a cut lip and Keith would probably have a black eye—in one of the spare rooms. They couldn’t have known that the thing they just knocked to the ground and had shattered into twenty pieces was her grandmother’s memory jar. But she had burst into the room and upon seeing it broken about and unfixable she had teared up and told them angrily to leave. They sulked out, both upset that they had upset her so much but she didn’t want to hear it.  
  
So now that things had come to a head the four of them gathered for a secret meeting while Lance and Keith were both occupied. They had pulled Coran into the meeting as well.  
  
“We need to do something about this,” Shiro had pinched his nose and said.  
  
“Way ahead of you. I made this device that will actually send vibrations through the castle so that they won’t be able to hear each other’s voices but will be able to hear us just fine. If they can’t hear each other they can’t start fights.” Pidge pulled the device out and it looked like a little silver flash drive.  
  
Everyone was a bit wary at this but then Allura said: “I think we should give it a try. It’s not permanent, right?”  
  
“Well, not really. It will have some lasting effects, so when we form Voltron and stuff that might make it difficult to communicate between the two, but they barely speak except to yell at each other, so it should be okay. The effects only last for a few hours when you stop being in the range of the vibrations.”  
  
“No, no, no, I cannot condone this!” Coran said. “It would be wrong. They should talk it out among each other and fix it a healthier way. Besides, they wouldn’t agree to this.”  
  
“I mean… they don’t have to agree if we do, right? Majority rules?” Hunk said.  
  
But Coran was insistent that this would be the wrong way to handle the situation. He liked both the boys and he worried that not being able to communicate would drive the wedge between them even further. But he took the flash drive and agreed to think about it.  
  
And he didn’t give much thought of it until a week later when Keith and Lance managed to, somehow, destroy Pop-pops masterpiece: a to-scale replica of the most famous Altean battle in history. As soon as Coran saw the pieces flung everywhere and the two boys banged up and bruised from the fight he hurried out of the room to the control panel where he inserted the device.


	2. The Next Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance realize something is wrong

Lance walked into the kitchen, stretching as he tried to wake up. Because he slept in later than anyone else he normally ate breakfast alone but for some reason Keith was in there, hunched over the sink and furiously scrubbing at the dishes.

“Hey, Mullet.” Lance grabbed a clean bowl and started filling it with goop. But there was no response from Keith.

“Mullet? Hello? Ignoring me, really? Now, that’s pretty childish even for you.”

Keith didn’t even turn to look. More than a little miffed Lance leaned over and tapped Keith on the shoulder.

Keith startled, dropping the bowl he was cleaning with a thud. His mouth moved as if he was saying something but nothing came out.

“Haha very funny, Keith. What did I do to piss you off, this time?”

Keith furrowed his brow and he looked angry. He looked like he was speaking again, but like before, not a single word.

“Did you hit your head training or something? You’re not saying anything.”

But now Lance was worried. Lance was the much bigger tease between the two and this was definitely not something Keith would have been able to keep up with.

“Or am I going deaf because… I can’t hear you.”

Keith seemed to say something but it almost looked as if he stopped himself in the middle of a word. He eyed Lance carefully and then grabbed Lance’s arm and pulled him out of the kitchen. Lance wanted to ask where they were going but knew he wouldn’t actually get an answer. His worry was quickly turning to bitter fear.

But Keith dragged them both to Shiro, who was with Allura as they planned something out. Lance could hear quite clearly what they were saying (which didn’t mean he understood exactly what they were talking about—they seemed to be planning some sort of party with a group of allied aliens).

Keith turned to him and tried speaking again, fierce concentration written across his face. Lance shook his head, though; he still didn’t hear whatever Keith was trying to say.

“Sorry, Mullet, I still can’t hear you.”

At this point they had gathered Shiro and Allura’s attention. The two of them shared a look.

“I think we should have a team meeting,” Allura said.

Keith whipped his head and looked like he snapped something at her.

“No, Lance is speaking fine,” she answered. “It’s just… well, it would be better in a group setting.”

“Wait, you can hear him?” Lance said. “Why can you hear him but I can’t? Is there something wrong? Is he okay?” Lance turned to Keith and grabbed him by the shoulders to turn him. He was slow and careful with his words, hoping the other boy would be able to read his lips. “Are you okay?”

Keith stared at him and Lance had to repeat himself. Then he nodded and mouthed, Are you?

Lance nodded and released the red paladin. “Okay, then, what the quiznak is going on?”


	3. Effects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith end up feeling very lonely without each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this took me ages. I haven't even had time to procrastinate lately. School sucks sometimes, huh? Anyway, finals are right around the corner and then spring break and then one last term! Is the real world ready for me?
> 
> On topic: I hope you enjoy this. The next chapter (hopefully up sooner than later) will be the scene that I thought of that's inspired this whole fic.

Neither Lance nor Keith reacted well when the team explained that, thanks to a special frequency, neither would be able to hear the other. They told them that they were hoping this would cut down on the two of them fighting but both took it rather personally.

“So it’s just in the Castle-ship?” Lance had asked. 

“Actually,” Pidge said, pushing her glasses up her nose as she did, “there are delayed effects. The longer you’re in an area with the frequency the longer it will last when you’re out of that area.”

“So even when we form Voltron we can’t hear each other? Or when we’re down on planets?”

Pidge confirmed this. Keith who had been able to piece together what they were talking about with just one side of the conversation told everyone that he thought this was a stupid and dangerous idea and then left in a huff. Lance looked absolutely betrayed and sulked out after Keith.

Sure, the rest of the paladins and the Alteans felt bad about how their friends were taking it but if it would lend itself towards the two of them fighting less (and, if they fought less, maybe they’d be able to bond as a team more?) they couldn’t find themselves being that upset with their decisions. 

And, as the hours turned to days, it was pretty peaceful on the ship. They’d had to form Voltron once since the frequency had been put into effect, but that hadn’t been a problem since Shiro gave all the orders anyways. 

…

It had been a week since he stopped being able to hear Keith and Lance found he had a lot of free time on his hands. He asked Hunk if he needed help in the kitchen but Hunk assured him he was okay, thanks for asking. He asked Pidge if she wanted to play video games but she was busy helping Coran fix something on the ship (and Coran offered Lance some cleaning jobs which he wasn’t desperate enough to take yet…). He would have asked Shiro if he wanted to train but they weren’t really that close. And if he asked Allura if she wanted to do something… well, he wasn’t actually sure what he would ask Allura to do. What did she spend time doing?

So he went looking for her.

It turns out she spent a lot of her time reading. She was trying to get a sense of where the universe was now, since she had been in the cry pod for so long and things had changed rapidly.

“Hey, Princess,” Lance sat across from her.

She looked up with a distracted half smile. “Hello, Lance. Can I help you with something?”

“I wanted to see if you wanted to hang out." 

“Oh. Well, I’m just doing research. I don’t really need help with that…”

“That’s okay I can do research, too!” Lance grabbed one of the books from the stack and started flipping through it only to find that it was written in Altean, not English, and he couldn’t read a word of it.

“It’s very nice of you to offer, Lance, but I’d rather just read on my own if you don’t mind.” 

Lance got the message and left. He ended up taking a nap in his room, feeling lonelier than he had in a very long time.

…

Keith wasn’t avoiding Lance, per se, but if he couldn’t talk with the other boy he had to wonder what the point was. Sure, the two of them fought a lot, but it’s not like they were actually fighting to hurt one another. 

Which meant he’d taken to sparring a lot on his own or with Shiro, though sparring with Shiro was both more of a challenge and less of a challenge than with Lance. Lance was incredibly competitive (and he brought out the competitiveness in Keith) and because of that he was always pushing himself in different ways and Keith had to figure out how to react. It made sparring and training feel more like a game. With Shiro it was much more rigid and much more “let’s do all the levels in order” rather than “try level 69 (followed by snickers from the both of them (followed by getting their asses whooped by the bots))”.

And besides Shiro, Keith wasn’t that close with anyone else. If he was being honest… Lance was probably his closest friend on the ship. Not that he’d ever admit that. And not that anyone else really seemed to understand.

So why was he avoiding Lance again? It had made sense at the beginning of the whole thing, but now he craved the other boy’s company.

Which was reason enough to avoid him. So Keith went and took a nap (which was unheard of for him) and avoided dinner.


	4. Softly Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance wanders the halls at night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no write, huh? So many apologies-- I love this fic, it's a very dear AU to me. I also hate giving up on stories. I can't promise that I'll be posting these chapters regularly, but I know exactly where I want the story to go and I love writing it. I will say we're about 1/3 of the way through the plot at this point, so it's not going to be a particularly long series.
> 
> But, anyways, depression's a bitch so it might be awhile before anything new, but please enjoy this new chapter!

No one had really noticed how much Lance and Keith had kept each other company; no one really noticed how, without each other to talk to, Lance and Keith were both much quieter. They were less lively, more likely to spend time alone, which meant that neither was getting into trouble. The lack of trouble, certainly, was noticed and appreciated by everyone.

But for Keith and Lance days in the castle had started, more and more, to feel pointless. Keith turned all of his attention to training. Lance still kept active enough that people didn’t worry, but he had turned to sleeping away most of the day or at least staying curled up in bed with an Altean tablet and surfing the space-internet.

Neither boy thought maybe it was still worth seeking out the other.

…

Sleeping all day meant that Lance wasn’t really tired at night. Even days when they were needed as Voltron couldn’t quite tire him out all the way. It was as if he had stuffed himself full of sleep and until he drained it all out of his system he wouldn’t be getting to bed.

He took to wandering the halls when no one else was awake. It was a little surreal and reminded him that his life these days was something out of a science fiction novel. While it could feel cold and harsh in a giant spaceship filled with empty rooms, the fact that it was the early morning leant that near-dawn peace and excitement he’d always had during car rides on family vacation.

This night Lance finds himself in the observatory.

He’d been there a couple of times during the day, when Allura or Coran was explaining something to all the Paladins about the wider universe, but never at night.

Someone had left on the displays and Lance was enchanted by them. Constellations and solar systems swam in the air and eye level and surrounded him completely. It was like he had his own personal universe.

He was so busy looking at the stars that he nearly tripped over Keith.

Keith was sitting on the ground watching Lance walk among the stars. He had, previously, been just watching the stars, but seeing Lance’s face light up at the display had taken all his attention.

Now the two of them were staring at each other, Keith on the ground looking up at a boy haloed by digital starlight, Lance above him seeing how the whole universe seemed captured and reflected in Keith’s eyes.

“Can I join you?” Lance asked and then realized that Keith wouldn’t hear him.

An overwhelming sadness was like a wave through Lance’s body.

Keith didn’t know what Lance had said but he saw a deflation seem to come over his friend’s body—it was as if his whole demeanor were slouching and whatever magic had drawn Lance into the room had now fled. 

Stay, Keith wanted to say to him. He patted the floor next to him and scooched over just a tad, offering even more space.

And then Lance was sitting on the floor next to him, legs crossed, shoulder pressed against Keith’s.

…

Meeting in the observatory became a nightly occurrence. The two couldn’t speak, and, for whatever reason, neither thought to bring paper or a tablet so that they could communicate, but that was okay:

Because soon they found their own language…


	5. Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys learn to hold hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank everyone for all the love I've been getting in these comments. <3 Y'all are the best <3

It started with Lance touching his fingers against the back of Keith’s hand during one of their nightly sessions.

For several weeks now they had been coming in here and looking at alien constellations. Lance had been giving them names in his head and he wondered if Keith had been doing the same. The silence between them felt less like a wall when they were here—it felt like companionship and unity.

Which is why Lance didn’t think twice when he touched Keith’s hand. Keith didn’t react and Lance, half-subconsciously, just rubbed his thumb up and down the back of Keith’s hand. When he realized what he was doing he pulled his hand away and pulled himself away. Looking at Keith out of the corner of his eye he saw the other boy blushing, but he made no move to create distance between them.

The next night Keith’s hand waited patiently between them, palm up. Keith wouldn’t make eye contact, but it was clear he was asking for something. Lance put two fingers in Keith’s palm and traced shapes there, not daring to look at Keith’s face. 

The night after that Keith was done waiting—when Lance sat down Keith didn’t waste time and just held his hand. Lance was shocked for a moment but Keith didn’t give up; rather, he tensed, as if trying to cage Lance’s hand in his own. In this half-tension they spent the evening.

But the night after that they relaxed into each other.

During the days Lance had become more active, in large part because Keith had started to seek him out.

Keith still trained for the majority of the day, or spent time with Shiro, but when there was other spare time he always looked for Lance. He didn’t dare ask the other’s if they knew where Lance would be because he didn’t want them to try any other measures in separating the two of them. 

When Lance realized that Keith looked for him most days he stopped hiding away in his room. He didn’t want to seem like he was wasting away or pouting so he sought out activities. It became a fun little cat-and-mouse game where Lance would find something new, sometimes something odd, in a different room every day and see how long it took Keith to find him.

Any communication progress they made in the Castle did not carry over to missions. Sure, things went smoothly with Shiro able to communicate plans to the whole team and their training keeping them all in-sync for the most part, but the screens in their lions was a different sort of wall between them. On one mission Lance tried reading Keith’s lips when he popped up on screen, but he got so caught up with looking at those lips that he wasn’t able to make out the shape of letters. 

The worst miscommunication came when Keith called for help and Lance didn’t hear him.

Voltron was under attack so it wasn’t as if Lance hadn’t been dealing with his own horde of Galra troops. His lion had strayed near to Keith’s, though the red lion wasn’t in his view at this point. Had he been Lance might have noticed that the Galra seemed to be doubling up on Keith; he might have noticed that Keith was struggling to disengage in order to get a clear shot at the ships; he might have noticed when a laser beam hit Keith’s lion, dropping the other paladin into unconsciousness.

He did notice the black lion shooting through space in front of him. Lance turned his lion in time to see Shiro take out the horde of ships and ferry Keith to safety. In his terror Lance finished off the Galra around him and followed his teammates to the ship. 

Keith ended up fine after a short stint in the healing pod. He was even good to go by that night and he didn’t look any worse for wear. 

Lance pressed himself closer to Keith’s side and held his hand tightly.

“I know you can’t hear me but I need to tell you a secret,” Lance said. “I think I’m falling in love with you.” He waited, half-hoping that somehow Keith had heard that. “I know this sounds sudden but I think I was falling in love with you before all of this happened and I think I’m still falling in love with you. Heh, I don’t know if I’ll ever stop. But you got hurt today… I couldn’t do anything about that. It scared me a lot, Keith.” He stopped again, trying not to cry. He had been falling in love with Keith for a long time, something he hadn’t even admitted to himself until he said the words just then. And for all that falling, when he realized Keith might be dead and he hadn’t even known he was in danger, that felt like hitting the concrete, hard. “I—”

But he was stopped from saying more when Keith put his fingers against Lance’s mouth. He looked at Lance with big, sad eyes. They were shiny with unshed tears. He may not know what Lance was saying, but he seemed to get it.

Lance released his hand from Keith’s and wrapped his arm’s around the other boy, pulling him close. Keith laid his head against Lance’s chest, listening to the only thing he could hear from him—his heart beat.


	6. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran realizes some things

Coran was not someone who noticed things. It wasn’t that he was caught up in his own head and didn’t have time for others, it was that he had a hard time reading humans. Alteans and humans may look alike, but their body language could be very different, and whenever he thought he might understand something about the paladins, he often learned he was reading the situation a little wrong. Or he wouldn’t even notice something happening at all, if it was subtle enough.

But he did notice that Keith seemed to be a lot quieter after he’d gotten hit with that laser and ended up in the healing pod. It wasn’t a worse injury than he’d ever had before, and all the scans had said that Keith was cleared to go, no more pain. But something was definitely wrong. 

When Coran cornered him and tried to ask gently he just got a lot of noncommittal answers.

“Just want to check up, make sure,” Coran had said, smiling widely and basically pushing Keith into the healing room. He ran a few checks and Keith seemed bored more than anything else. But, again, Coran never really noticed things with the paladins.

“Seems everything’s all right. You know you can talk to me, right boyo?” Coran asked.

And then Keith’s face darkened. “I know,” is all he said before he left in a huff.

Coran cleaned up the medical area, and as he did, he thought. He thought about how Keith had been hit in the first place; he thought about what he had said about talking; he thought about how, even though the fighting might have gotten out of hand, it had been a form of communication and it hadn’t really gotten in the way of anything that important.

All the guilt he’d been pushing to the side surged through Coran at once. Keith and Lance fighting could have been solved a different way. And now the two barely interacted. They couldn’t exactly be a team if two of the team members couldn’t speak to each other.

What would Alfor say if he saw what Coran had allowed to happen? 

He needed to talk to the rest of the paladins and Allura. This couldn’t be allowed to continue. It shouldn’t have gone on as long as it had.

It wasn’t just Keith, Coran realized, who was feeling worse off because of it. Lance had sequestered himself for the most part, though Coran would sometimes find him in odd rooms. But there was never movie night or game night anymore, something that Lance often spear headed. None of the other paladins had mentioned anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t feeling the absences of the Blue and Red paladins.

He needed to get everyone together and they needed to undo what they had done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for sticking around and for leaving such nice comments! I think the story is going to start winding down now, only a handful of chapters left. Still plenty of room for fluff (and even a tiny bit of angst). Do you want to guess what the boy's first words to each other will be when they are able to hear each other again?
> 
>  
> 
> On a more personal note: I've had a lot of unexpected stressors in my life that just absolutely sapped all my creative energy. I'm working on getting it back, but do you have any recommendations? Like, is there anything you do when you feel you can't possibly create (whether it's write or make art or make music or something) to help kickstart yourself again? Thanks!


	7. Finally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *communication*

It was Keith who brought the paper and pen.

They sat in the observatory, across from each other but not apart as their knees touched, creating a bridge. In between their laps, in the space, Keith had laid the paper and pen down, as if it were a sacred object.

But neither was reaching for it. They were just staring at it.

Maybe that did make it a sacred object.

It was Lance who caved. Sorta. 

He grabbed the pen, hid the little message he wrote, and then spun the paper so the words were upright.

_Come here often?_ He had written.

Keith quirked a grin. He took the pen from Lance and hid his own words as he responded. He turned the page around.

Except it wasn’t a response. Not really.

It said: _You make me happy. You make me feel safe. I miss your voice._

Lance nearly started crying. He knew he was probably tearing up and tried to do all he could to blink away the shininess in his eyes. He couldn’t look at Keith. He couldn’t.

With a shaky hand Lance wrote: _I’m not lonely when you’re around. I miss your voice, too, but I’m not lonely when you’re here._

Lance still wouldn’t look at Keith, though he pressed his knees just a little harder against the other boy’s, as if grounding himself in the moment.

_Every night I fall asleep trying to remember what you sound like._

And then a tear did drip from Lance’s eye. He wiped it away hastily and in the process saw Keith watching him closely. His eyes were watery, too. And wary.

_I can’t fix that._ Lance wrote. _God, I want to fix that. I want to talk to you, for real. I want to hear you, for real. What if I forget? What if this thing caused damage to our ears and we’ll never be able to hear each other again?_

Keith read the words and picked up the pen, but he didn’t seem to know how to respond, so Keith took the pen from him gently. He scratched out everything after “I can’t fix that”, dispelling the dark thoughts. And then he wrote: 

_Come back to my room tonight._

And then he blushed because wasn’t that presumptuous? 

_So that we don’t have to be alone, I mean._

Keith reached over and Lance went to hand him the pen, but Keith bypassed the pen and grabbed Lance’s hand. He nodded. 

They spent the night in each other’s arms, listening to their breaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm slow going with responding to comments, and I'm sorry about that, but I do read everything and it makes me so happy to see what y'all say! Absolutely makes my heart glow.
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO: I plan to update this story every Thursday for the foreseeable future. I don't know exactly how many chapters there will be but I think this is the beginning of the final act.


	8. Into His Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance wakes up and thinks Keith is cute. What else is new?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i'm sorry. this chapter hurt to write so i think it may hurt to read. please enjoy.)

The first thing Lance saw when he woke up was Keith.

The other boy had his face covered by his hair and his arms stretched up and under the pillow which he had stolen sometime during the night. Somehow Lance had slept through that.

Without conscious thought Lance reached out with gentle fingers and tucked the hair behind Keith’s ear.

In sleep Keith’s face was like a blank slate, muscles relaxed and mouth open a little. In fact, there was even a small line of drool creeping down the side of his chin.

God, is this was being in love feels like?

With that same gentle finger Lance traced little patterns against the skin on Keith’s face. He started with little whorls around the ear and then moved just below the ear, across the chin making a zig-zag as he went; from the chin he skipped gently over the lips, afraid to actually touch them, to around the side of Keith’s nose. Just as he would have reached Keith’s eye, it opened. 

Awake and calm Keith watched Lance’s face go through a flicker of surprise at the sudden awakening and then a tint of guilt at being caught and finally landing on sheepishness.

“I really liked that,” Keith said softly, knowing a dopy smile was probably playing out across his face. 

And then Lance’s face was full of sorrow and actual tears sprang to his eyes.

Had Keith said something wrong? Was it too much? Was it—

Reality crashed into Keith like a cannonball. If he could steam out of his ears he probably would be. Instead he tossed the covers off of him and practically pushed himself out of bed. He knew he was being harsh and violent but his anger always got the best of him.

He slammed the door behind him on his way out.

Goddamit. God quiznacking dammit. GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

As soon as he got into his own room he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

Because waking up this morning he hadn’t remembered that Lance couldn’t hear him. He’d still been fuzzy, half-awake. Lance running his fingers against his face had just done more to numb him to the real world.

And then he’d gone to say something—he’d spoken from his heart and of course Lance couldn’t hear him and now Keith wanted to rip himself apart because he couldn’t do anything to fix the situation.

Knocking on the door against his back shocked him into hurriedly standing up and wiping away the angry tears. Probably Shiro, who was one door down, having heard him slam his door and checking up like a good brother. 

Keith swung the door open trying to look as collected as he could. 

But it was Lance there. There were tear tracks down his cheeks, though Lance had tried to dry himself up as well.

For a moment it was a standoff. Keith had run out of Lance’s room so fast and so angrily Lance thought he might have done something or that Keith was finally realizing that he had agreed to spend the night with him. (Even though nothing had happened, I mean, they weren’t even dating, right?, so, like, just bro’s, right? Lance had his doubts it had been platonic. Or, maybe hope was a better word for it.) 

But Keith was looking at Lance with such an open depth of emotion. Lance thought, maybe, Keith felt the same way he did. Maybe Keith lo—liked him.

Lance swept Keith into his arms and Keith gripped back. Neither was crying, they were just holding each other. He felt Keith relax against him, the anger from minutes earlier fading from his bones.

Lance let himself think it: Maybe Keith loved him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I may have shed some tears while writing this. The boys are so precious and must be protected. I didn't mean for this chapter to be an angsty one, it was actually going to be the rest of the team having that meeting that Coran wanted to have but I really just needed to write about Klance tonight.
> 
> This is definitely a turning point in the story. I would call it the definitive end of act two. Though in my head i keep changing the outline so who knows. *shrugs*
> 
> ALSO I totally listened to a wedding song playlist while I wrote this because they're definitely married (maybe not in this fic but in like post-canon life and every good universe).


	9. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coran calls a meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I know this is coming a day late, many apologies. I've just started a new job and it's been draining adjusting to work again. I'm very, very happy where I'm working (honestly, it's the best place I've worked, and even though pay is not great, I feel like I'm actually being treated like a human for once, so I think it's a win) but it's eating up much of my free time. I still plan on putting out a chapter for this every Thursday, though; if it's not out on Thursday it will definitely be out my Saturday night each week, so do keep looking forward to it!
> 
> ALSO you may notice I've finally figured out how long this is going to be... 14 chapters. Now, that may grow a chapter or two if one of them ends up too long, but the outline I've made for the final act looks like it will fit nicely with five more chapter after this one. It's been a ride, guys, I hope you like how it ends :)

Coran finally got everyone on the deck in order to have the meeting about Keith and Lance. But when he told them that he thought their best course of action was to turn off the sound device and allow the red and blue paladins to talk to each other again he was met with disagreement. 

Pidge: “But do you remember what kind of havoc those two have caused because they were fighting?”

Hunk: “Look, they’re both my friends, but… it’s not like they’re friends with each other. I’m sure they would have said something if they didn’t like what was happening?

Shiro: “Hunk’s right, one of them would have said something. And it has been working pretty well, they’re not fighting any more. And the team hasn’t suffered at all. We can still form Voltron.”

Allura: “I would hate if any of my paladins were hurting, but Keith and Lance’s fighting and bickering has had such negative consequences. And it’s not as if we hadn’t asked them to stop in the past. They kept it up, and things were broken because of it.”

Coran had never been one to have a way with words. Sure, he always had a story for each situation, but even though he enjoyed telling those stories, he could tell that they didn’t always vibe with his audience. But now, now he didn’t have any stories, any words at all. Not really.

“I think it’s a bad idea we keep this up,” he said finally.

No one was convinced.

 

…

 

Allura found Keith and Lance asleep in the kitchen. She had no idea why they’d fallen asleep there, nor how it was even comfortable to nap with one’s head smushed against the table like that (in Lance’s case). She took a moment to take stock of the situation and to just look at the boys.

In sleep they both looked much more peaceful. At ease with the world, not stressed by the war. In sleep it was hard to imagine the hassles they’d caused her in the past.

They were, after all, just teenagers. Still figuring out how the world worked, having just been thrust into space, having just been thrust into a war that they didn’t even belong to. And they were taking it all in stride. So what if they had fought a little bit? Broken an important heirloom? It wasn’t actually all that important in the grand scheme of things…

 

…

 

Hunk had been feeling bad after the meeting Coran had called. Maybe the mustachioed man was right and they should let Keith and Lance talk again. 

Hunk went looking for Lance. He’d only know for certain if he asked his friend how he felt about the situation. And now that he thought about it he hadn’t really hung out with Lance in a while. And Lance had sought him out he’d just been busy…

With a sinking feeling Hunk realized he’d been a crappy friend.

But finding Lance took much longer than he anticipated. And when he finally found him, he and Keith were hanging out in the common room, sharing the couch, reading. Lance glanced up, offered Hunk a wave, and then went back to his book.

That was weird. Sure, they couldn’t talk, but even seeing them hanging out, peacefully, without shoving one another off the couch or something was new. And doing something so typical as reading and spending company together sank Hunk’s stomach even more and convinced him he was wrong about wanting this whole thing to happen in the first place.

 

…

 

Pidge was going over some notes when she heard a loud crash.

“Hey!” She looked up, ready to yell at Lance or Keith before she realized it was Hunk, standing there sheepishly. She blinked past the confusion—Hunk knew how to be careful with her things. 

“Sorry, I had to get your attention somehow. Calling your name hadn’t been working,” he said when he sat down.

She waved it off. “I was busy with this. What’s up?”

Hunk cleared his throat and said, “I think Coran’s right, we should turn the device off." 

“Hunk, no. Look at how peaceful the ship has been!”

“I mean, sure, but maybe they’ve learned their lesson? I saw them hanging out today, just reading. Seems they’ve buried the hatchet, or whatever.”

“Sounds more like it’s working and because they can’t talk they can’t fight, which means they can hang out with each other. They should be thanking us,” she said. But even as she said it she felt some guilt gnaw at her. She pushed it to the side.

“Hand me that,” she told Hunk, pointing at something. 

He did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I love all the comments you all leave! I read them immediately even if I don't respond right away. It's a combination of anxiety and, now, having a job again. I'm going to try and respond more frequently and quickly, but even if I do keep dragging tail, I just want you all to know that I love you dearly and every single comment brings so much joy to my heart.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, and thank you for enjoying and taking the time to leave such nice words for me :) <3 <3 <3


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